The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-03-04
VOL. ".

| of ideas. | care little, very little, how men
vote. What care for is how they think.
| [ Applausel Let them think right, La
| voice-''let them vote right. and you
| may trust that they will vote right. That
is the true motto that you have placed
upon that board: Strike and boycott your
adversary with the ballot. Aye, in the
ballot; not the mere poking a piece of
paper in box for this man or that man,
or this ring or the other ring, but the in
telligent aiming at the control of the gen.
eral conditions. A voice THAT'S the
point.'] That's the point. When the
working men of the United States fully
| awake to that as now they are awaking,
the day of their emancipation will be at
hand.
What is the use OF denouncing poiti-
clans, of talking ofoppressions ofcapitalists
or of landlords? All power is in the hands
| Of the people of this country. If they do
| not choose to use it, it is their own fault,
and the great thing that you are going to
do in this campaign, as the great thing
that we have done in New York, is to
| arouse thought, is to bring on the discus
sion of cardinal principles. Applause. ]
| Discomfort there is all over the United
| States, and there ought to be discomfort.
In the richest country under the sun, i'll q
country that could maintain with no great
err density of population than exists in
| many parts Of Europe MANIFOLD its pres
ent population, there are even in the best
of times men and women suffering
actual want There are even III the best
of times thousands and thousands Of men
vanly seeking for employment, and in the
periodical times that we call Industrial de-
pressions, the thousands become hundreds
Of thousands. Why is this :. There is the
heart of the labor question. The diff
Guilty Of finding employment is the CEN
trail fact thai dominates everything else.
Here is this great strike in New York.
What was the difficulty the men who
struck there had to contend against p
the vast army of unemployed men. SO it
is in every strike. Trades Unions, labor
organizations. all the machinery of strikes
and boycotts aim at keeping off the men
who are pressing for employment, prevent
ting the competition in the labor market
thai pushes wages down.
And why should there be unemployed
men III such country as this? Why shonld
any man who wants work find any diff
Guilty in getting work? What is work, any
how? What is productive labor? In the
last analysis il is the union of human exer-
ton with the raw materials oi nature. 1t
is the working up of the elements that we
find already in existence. Take what form
of productive labor yon please, and
whether IA man by working two thousand
feet under the ground, or working up in the
eighth story of a factory, he is yet expend-
ing his labor upon land, or the products of
land, working up the raw material.
Is there not land enough in the United
States to give every man work who wants
work ? A voice yves. No one has a
right to ask anyone else to employ Lin.
Applause No one has a right to say to
another, lyon shall employ me, y or you
shall employ me at such and such wages, "
but each man has a right to employ his
Own labor, loud applause, and when the
natural opportunities for employment are
shut up so that men cannot employ them
selves, then they must go and beg for
somebody else to employ them. There is
the W hole explanation of what seems like
an over-supply in the labor market. There
is enough work in this country. We talk
about ''over- production, but there can be
no over-production i'll any true sense ofthe
term until all human wants are supplied.
applause What is this thing that is
talked of as "over-production? ?" So much
food that people must stint themselves;
so much drygoods that they must wear
old clothes? Laughter. 1t is not over
production. it is unjust distribution, and
the bottom cause of that unjust distribu-
ton lies in the making of that element on
which and from which all human kind
must live, the private and exclusive prop
erty of some Of their number. Applause.
There is no need of looking any further for
the cause of all the phenomena Of over
production, of stagnated industry, of the
troubles between workingmen and their
employers, that we see to-day. We say
we have abolished slavery, but the real
truth is that we have only abolished one
rude form of slavery. Applause If any
man owns the land on which and from
which | must live, if | live at all, he is my
master Just as fully as though he had a
legal claim upon my flesh and blood. APP
plause. Friday, as you know, in Defoe's
story. when he was rescued by Robinson
Crusoe, knelt down and raising Crusoe's
foot placed il on his head. That meant
that thereafter he would be his slave. But
surprising Crusoe had raised him up and
had called him man and brother, and
told him that there was no slavery on that
island that he was just as free as he was,
and that lie could be President if he got
votes enough, laughter and then said to
him, ''but this island is mine, and you can
only live here on my terms Why, the black
man would have been just as much slave
as under any other form of slavery. lie
could not swim away; he could not fly
away To be driven off from that island
meant to him absolute death; and therefore
if he lived at all he could only remain up
on the terms of the owner of the soil.